


the moon lives in the lining of your skin

by blackkat



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 07:10:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13875804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: The world around them bleeds away. In an instant, they're back in the clearing where they first met as children, tall golden trees and red moon and a body on the ground. Sōsuke had killed the man who was trying to kill them, and Hiyori had helped, and under the red moon they’d looked at each other for a brief eternity before, together, they turned and walked away.Sōsuke still wonders, sometimes, what would have happened if one of them had been ten minutes later walking down that road. A missed meeting, or maybe an early death, and his entire life would be shifted into something…unrecognizable.





	the moon lives in the lining of your skin

The only sound in the clearing is that of his ragged breaths, and Sōsuke curls his hands into fists and closes his eyes.

 _Control_ , he thinks, and it’s usually so _easy_ , comes naturally the way so many things do, but—

One moment of arrogance, of inattention, and they all looked at him with fear in their eyes.

All their months at the Academy and he’s been careful, controlled his reiatsu, measured his power. Passed beneath the notice of nearly everyone except as an intelligent, kind Shinigami hopeful, because this is the alternative: assuming his own perfection, losing his grip on a Kido, and blowing up a training hall with his entire class present.

With _her_ present.

He breathes in through his nose, holds it, lets it out. Hiyori has been with him every moment since she found him in the Rukongai, at every step along his path. Violent and angry at everything and more than willing to beat him over the head at any point, and Sōsuke drags a hand over his face, doesn’t let himself think about the training hall. The others were fine—Hirako is a suspicious bastard and always waiting for Sōsuke to waver, so he got them to safety. Got _hurt_ , and Sōsuke might not like him but he is grateful, in a vague, distant sort of way.

Human connection is something strange, and Sōsuke has never been good at it. Even with Hiyori, he’s inept, because his fake smiles don’t fool her and she dislikes them, takes offence when he aims them at her. And without that—

Sōsuke never cared about other people before he met Hiyori, and he still doesn’t. Hiyori just happens to be something else entirely.

Slowly, deliberately, he sinks down on the grassy hill, lifting his face to the clear sky. There's a breeze, carrying clouds across the distant horizon, but it’s warm and for now there's no reason to move. The instructor might be looking for him, but Sōsuke doesn’t care. It was a training accident, and he made a mistake, and he isn’t going to let it happen again.

(He thinks, for a moment, of how he heard Hiyori in the aftermath but didn’t see her before he turned and…left. Not fled. But what if she has the same reaction as the rest of them? What if Sōsuke’s immense reiatsu, strong enough to shatter barriers even as a first-year student, proves too strange for her? What will he be left with, without Hiyori at his shoulder, punching him in the side and yelling whenever he does something people think is creepy or manipulative and he simply thinks is normal?)

His sword whispers comfort, cool and light like the reflection of moonlight on flowing water. It makes him take another breath, careful and controlled, and lay his hand against the hilt. Hiyori hadn’t been at breakfast this morning when he intended to share the news—oversleeping, like always, and Sōsuke had only just chivied her out of her room in time for their first class, so he hadn’t gotten the chance then. He’d meant to, after their kido class, but clearly that went nothing at all like he had planned.

Another breath, and Sōsuke sighs, allows himself half a moment to slump forward, elbows braced on his raised knees. He hangs his head, rakes a hand through his hair and tries to focus on Hiyori’s expression last week when he caught him trying out new hairstyles in the mirror. She’d laughed herself sick at the one he liked best, told him that he looked like he’d dunked his head in a vat of lube and gotten all but one lock of it plastered to his head. Rude, Sōsuke thinks, but he tugs on a strand, considers that make she has a point. The megalomaniac look doesn’t really suit him, either; as fun as it might be to topple governments and rule the world, he’d spend the rest of his life black and blue from the amount of offense Hiyori would take at the notion, and that wouldn’t be worth it.

His faint smile fades a little at the thought. _Fear_ is all too clear a memory, Hirako’s fury as he threw himself of the others to block the blast. Hiyori’s voice, raised through the smoke as Sōsuke left the training hall, and he hadn’t been able to hear her clearly but—

“Oi, dumbass! There you are!”

He jerks to his feet, spinning in place. Hiyori, winded and still in her soot-streaked uniform, is stalking towards him across the grass, looking _furious_.

“Hiyori,” Sōsuke says, a little surprised by the sheer amount of anger in every line of her body. He hadn’t thought a destroyed building would be enough to bring her to this, and he wonders if the damage was worst than he thought, if someone really did die, if he’s been expelled from the Academy—

“You _idiot_!” Hiyori punches him in the chest, hard enough to make him stagger. “I thought you were _hurt_ , you bastard, blasting off like that! And then I couldn’t _find you_!”

 _Oh_ , Sōsuke thinks, and winces. He hadn’t thought of that.

“I needed…space,” he says, a rough attempt at explanation. _I needed to recover my control_ , he doesn’t say, because that’s too much vulnerability and Hiyori won't take advantage, won't push, but it’s still _there_.

Hiyori huffs, flinging herself down onto the grass. “You think I don’t know that?” she demands. “But next time _tell me_. I thought you’d run off to die in a ditch somewhere.”

Sōsuke breathes out, feels something under his breastbone settle when he hadn’t even realized he’d been tense. “I don’t want it to happen again,” he says plainly, more honest than he normally is, and takes a seat beside her.

Hiyori punches him in the arm, but lightly. “It doesn’t matter,” she says, and it’s very nearly a warning. “You're a _student_ , dumbass. We _both_ are. We’re still learning reiatsu control and kido and all of that other stuff, that’s why we’re here in the first place. Other people have destroyed training halls, too, you know. You're not _that_ special.”

Sōsuke wants to be offended, but it’s hard with the way Hiyori is glaring at him, pigtails bristling. She’s…cute. Violent and loud and Sōsuke’s opposite in every way, but still the cutest girl in their class. In the entirety of the Academy, even.

He looks away, out at the ring of clouds on the horizon, and breathes out. Draws a breath in, takes courage from it, and asks, “Was anyone hurt?”

“Shinji,” Hiyori admits, but her huff is unimpressed. “He got a Bakudo up, but it cracked after one hit. He’s fine, though—still loud and annoying as ever.”

“You think everyone is annoying,” Sōsuke points out, smiling a little.

Hiyori scoffs. “Because everyone _is_ ,” she protests. “Even you, dumbass, because of stuff like _this_.”

Sōsuke hesitates, but—that thought from before, of having to spend the rest of his life without Hiyori next to him, makes him say quietly, “I apologize for worrying you. And for…frightening you.”

There's a long, fraught moment of silence. Sōsuke can hear his heartbeat, loud in his ears, and he can't quite bring himself to look over at her even though he wants to.

Then, very evenly, Hiyori asks, “Frightening me?”

Sōsuke keeps his eyes fixed on the horizon, stands, steps away. “My reiatsu is too strong. I can hardly control it sometimes. And—when I don’t, things like this happen. The others are scared of me. They're right to be. I could crush all of them if I slipped up, even for a moment.” Finally, finally, he can't resist any longer, turns to face Hiyori to find her on her feet again, staring back at him with narrowed eyes. Takes a breath, and says the words he’s been thinking since the explosion. “You should be afraid of me too. you should—stay away.”

Half a second later, a sandal hits him in the face with all the force of a cannonball.

Sōsuke yelps, staggering, and a fist socks him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He sits down hard, entirely bewildered, and Hiyori drops down next to him.

“ _Dumbass_ ,” she says with feeling. “I'm not scared of you! I've _never_ been scared of you! You're an idiot and you're weird and you're obsessed with calligraphy and tea and you're my _best friend_! Why the hell would I ever be frightened?”

It’s a little hard to breathe. A little hard to think, and somehow the only reasonable response in this moment it to pull his zanpakuto from its sheath, not a student’s empty blade but a katana with a green hilt and a golden ribbon dangling from the tsuba. Hiyori’s eyes widen as it comes clear, but it’s not fear on her face, just…wonder.

“Sōsuke?” she asks, and her eyes flicker up to his.

“I woke her up last night,” Sōsuke says, and his throat feels tight but the words still come easily. Her name is Kyōka Suigetsu.”

Hiyori laughs, brilliant and happy, and catches his wrist, pulling his hand to her so she can see the blade more closely. “She’s beautiful,” she says happily. “You got your shikai already? That’s amazing!”

Carefully, Sōsuke catches her hand, shifts her grip so that she’s touching the hexagonal tsuba. “Shatter, Kyōka Suigetsu,” he says softly.

The world around them bleeds away. In an instant, they're back in the clearing where they first met, tall golden trees and red moon and a body on the ground. Sōsuke had killed the man who was trying to kill them, and Hiyori had helped, and under the red moon they’d looked at each other for a brief eternity before, together, they turned and walked away.

Sōsuke still wonders, sometimes, what would have happened if one of them had been ten minutes later walking down that road. A missed meeting, or maybe an early death, and his entire life would be shifted into something…unrecognizable.

“Oh, wow, this is your _shikai_?” Hiyori demands, moves like she’s going to pull her hand away and stand up, but Sōsuke catches her wrist.

“Don’t,” he warns. “If you're not touching Kyōka Suigetsu you won't be able to tell that it’s an illusion. Her power is perfect hypnosis. There's no breaking it.”

Hiyori’s eyes widen, but she settles where she is, looking around the clearing again. “Illusions?” she repeats. “That’s awesome! It’s the perfect thing for a tricky bastard like you!”

Sōsuke rolls his eyes a little, but…he’s smiling. Hiyori is happy, looking around with something like glee, and there isn’t even a trace of nervousness in her face. Nothing at all beyond the wonder, and that expression settles in Sōsuke’s chest like a warm drink after a cold day, curls around his heart. Hiyori is—everything. His best friend, his tether, and he loves her.

He loves her.

It’s automatic, instinctive to reach out, the illusion shattering around them. He pulls the ribbon from its loop, and it comes away easily in his hand, as if Kyōka Suigetsu is in complete agreement with him. Gently, carefully, he takes Hiyori’s wrist as she turns to him, wraps the ribbon around her wrist, and ties it carefully.

“As long as you're touching some part of her, Kyōka Suigetsu’s illusions will never fool you,” he says, looks up, meets Hiyori’s eyes. Her expression is attentive, careful, like she’s judging every one of his motions and weighing it for meaning. “ _I_ can never fool you.”

There's a moment of silence, and then Hiyori laughs. She throws herself forward, colliding with his chest, and wraps her arms tightly around his neck. “You can never do that anyway,” she tells him, muffled in his uniform, and Sōsuke chuckles, because it’s true. He wraps his arms around her in return, breathes in the warmth of her and the sunshine smell of her hair, the weight of her body. Trusting, happy in his presence, with a faith in him that’s bewildering and the fierceness to keep him from straying.

Sōsuke loves her.


End file.
